Al D'Amato Quotes

Despite all the gains for democracy in the world, in many countries anyone who wants to publish truths unwelcome to the government risks suppression and criminal punishment.

In Singapore, Malcolm X type of activity would be extremely difficult because the government can be very harsh on lawbreakers.

If I were a citizen of Russia, I would resist this communist dictatorship as vigorously as I have endeavored to resist the encroachment upon our democratic institutions in America. I hold that government of one class, denying the other classes the right to participate is tyranny.

My mind is appalled at the thought of a political party having control of all the details that go to make up the sum total of our lives. Think of it for an instant, that the party in power shall have all authority to dictate the kind of books that shall be used in our schools and universities, government officials editing, printing, and circulating our literature, histories, magazines and press, to say nothing of the thousand and one activities of life that a people engage in, in a civilized society.

If the believers in liberty wish the principles of liberty taught, let them never intrust that instruction to any government; for the nature of government is to become a thing apart, an institution existing for its own sake, preying upon the people, and teaching whatever will tend to keep it secure in its seat.

If there is ever a fascist takeover in America, it will come not in the form of storm troopers kicking down doors but with lawyers and social workers saying. "I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.

Either force or corruption has been the principle of every modern government.

This is probably my last free statement through our news media, where the radio and television are already under the heel of the ruling political party of Prime Minister Robert Mugabe. One would have thought radio and television were enough as propaganda tools.

There exists in modem America the necessity for protecting all of us from arbitrary action by governments more powerful and more pervasive than any in our ancestors’ time.

Most governments are designed for the purposes of oppression and personal ambition.

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.

In an absolute government there can be no... equiponderant parties. The despot is the government.

Whatever may be the immediate gains and losses, the dangers to our safety arising from political suppression are always greater than the dangers to that safety arising from political freedom.

All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man.

The imposition of a certain conception of democracy and human rights should be opposed.

People always suffer for what governments have done.

Aggression is simply another name for government. Aggression, invasion, government, are interconvertible terms. The essence of government is control, or the attempt to control. He who attempts to control another is a governor, an aggressor, an invader; and the nature of such invasion is not changed, whether it is made by one man upon another man, after the manner of the ordinary criminal, or by one man upon all other men, after the manner of an absolute monarch, or by all other men upon one man, after the manner of a modern democracy.

For a country to have a great writer ... is like having another government. That’s why no régime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones.

People who live in the post-totalitarian system know only too well that the question of whether one or several political parties are in power, and how these parties define and label themselves, is of far less importance than the question of whether or not it is possible to live like a human being.

The major conflicts of our day are autocrats verses the village square.

In the Middle East there are two methods of control: mass repression and mass bribery. In Syria they use mass repression; in Saudi Arabia, mass bribery. In Bahrain, a bit of both.

Governments and reactionary groups resort to nationalism, victimization, and suppression to keep foreign or offending speech at bay.

I have an institutional fear of big government. I have an institutional opposition to bureaucracy.

In the United States, we can do almost anything we want. It's not like Egypt, where you're going to get murdered by the security forces.